PATROL WAYPOINTS
Authorable routes that units walk automatically — guard circuits, hauler loops, scout sweeps — defined as ordered waypoint chains the AI follows until interrupted.
- SOLO-DEV COST LOW
- TIMING REAL-TIME
- COMMON IN STRATEGY · RTS · COLONY-SIM · AUTOMATION
RTS games have shipped patrol commands since StarCraft (shift-queued waypoints as standard grammar), colony sims like RimWorld handle it through zone assignments, Dungeon Keeper and evil-overlord games let players author their own dungeon's guard routes, and programming-adjacent games (Factorio's train schedules) elevate waypoint chains into logistics languages. On the receiving end, designer-placed patrol routes are the stealth genre's fundamental clockwork — but as a player-facing tool, waypoints are delegation: standing orders that convert a unit from a puppet needing constant attention into an agent executing intent. Designers expose patrol authoring because coverage problems (guard this perimeter, sweep this corridor, shuttle between these stations) are decisions worth making once, not every minute — and the waypoint chain is the minimal interface for expressing them. It's the gentlest entry in the automation ladder, before conditions and triggers. Key decisions: what happens on interruption (fight then resume, abandon route, return home — resumption behavior determines whether patrols are trustworthy), loop versus ping-pong versus one-way chains, and how routes are visualized and edited after creation (invisible patrols become unmaintainable). Pitfall: patrol AI that handles the route but not the world — units that walk their waypoints through fire, past enemies, or into obvious death teach players that delegation means negligence, and they return to micromanaging everything, which deletes the feature's entire value.